


Breakdown

by nauticalGriot



Category: Homestuck
Genre: i mean.... this is a fic in which karkat and sollux both exist so like... surprise?, suicidal ideation/thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:13:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2493989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticalGriot/pseuds/nauticalGriot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LOADING...<br/>OPENING FILE 413...<br/>SELECT PROFILE_<br/>ENTER NAME_</p><p>> Karkat Vantas</p><p>ERROR_<br/>FRAUD DETECTED...<br/>ENTER PASSWORD_</p><p>> **********</p><p>PASSWORD DECLINED...<br/>SYSTEM LOCK DOWN_</p><p>(a post-sgrub timeline where the world still ends and nobody is sure what they're doing anymore. infrequently updated.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ERROR: Karkat Vantas

LOADING WORLD ONE...  
ENTER NAME_

> Alternia

NAME ACCEPTED_

ENTER PASSWORD_

> ********

PASSWORD ACCEPTED_  
CHOOSE PATH_

> Examine inhabitants

PATH FOUND_  
ENTER COMMAND_

> Find Karkat Vantas

ERROR_  
ENTER COMMAND_

> Find Karkat Vantas

ERROR_  
KARKAT VANTAS DOES NOT EXIST_  
CHOOSE PATH_

> View inhabitants

> Find Karkat Vantas

ERROR_  
REDIRECTING...  
PATH AUTOMATICALLY SELECTED...  
COMMAND AUTOMATICALLY SELECTED...  
WORLD LOADED_  
SEER SELECTED_

LOADING..  
LOADING...


	2. SEER: Search.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your name is TEREZI PYROPE and you aren't quite sure what you're looking for anymore.

Sometimes you wake up from daymares so realistic they burn your tongue and leave your nose stuffed as if you've been crying. They're so incredibly vivid that you can still taste the color red on your tongue and hear a faint crackling that feels impossibly distant, feel the touch of cold fingers against your palm like a ghost. There are still flashes behind your eyes, rivers running like lava and stone houses full of cracks, and the whispering of what seems like a thousand voices. You wonder if these are the kinds of whispers Sollux talks about sometimes, but without the implications of death and destruction. Sweeps later, you would think these dreams might change a little or lead you somewhere but you're still just here.

It feels like forever before you can breathe through the nonexistent smoke in your lungs and get your heavy limbs moving. Sopor sticks to your skin and your hair as you climb out of your recupperacoon, leaving splashes of green on the floor and the side of your sleeping station. Trying to leave your daymares (Are they daymares?) behind you, you grab a towel from the stand to your left to wipe the slime from your face and body the best you can.

After very briefly considering putting the towel somewhere to get cleaned, you dump it on the floor beside a few of your stuffed friends. One of them looks at you in disgust, implying you should put your dirty things where they belong. You use your foot to turn him around so he won't be able to look at you and criticize your cleanliness again.

Now that _he's_ taken care of, you pull on some clothes and perch your glasses on your nose, sniffing to make sure the red lenses are still undamaged. You try to remember when and how these frames came into your possession, but there's nothing but static in the back of your pan that gives you no reliable leads. Maybe your lusus left them for you somehow, even if she is in an egg. Or one of your friends? It's not a very important detail to be missing, though, so your brush it off and get ready to start your day. There used to be a lot to get done, between your friends and FLARP and your justice work but things have changed.

Your friends are still slightly at odds, though not outright hostile, after what happened to Team Charge and the events following that. So even with the questionable truces that came after, FLARPing just hasn't felt right and you can't quite bring yourself to do it. This leaves you mostly with justice, and even orchestrating the demise of WICKED OFFENDERS can get a little old sometimes. You miss being a vigilante on Team Scourge, and you miss the simple dynamics your friend group used to have.

Dwelling on things you can't change has never done anyone any good and you know it, so you grab your palmhusk and wander outside. The breeze carries the smell of stones, smoke, and ashes from your right, very different from the bark and leaves that usually clog your senses. The night is warm, but you can't decide if it's _unusually_ warm or just warm. There's a few moments of hesitation on your part before you find your feet carrying you down the spiral on the side of your hive, leading down to the ground. The sound of your feet against the wood is a decent distraction from your thoughts as you head down, an easy repetition that keeps you from worrying about the fact that the smell of ash and smoke is getting closer and leaving marks on your lungs.

When you reach the ground, you automatically head towards where your lusus sits. It's a decent walk from your hive to the river where the giant stone scale sits, and the closer you get the hotter the air around you is. Sweat starts on the back of your neck and hides between your shoulderblades, a silent warning of what's happening around you. You pick up the pace, feet hitting the dirt harder as you go from walking to jogging around the trees to reach your lusus.

It doesn't take more than ten minutes before you can feel the fire in the forest around you, crackling and eating through the trees you've known as your hive since you hatched. The trees seem to scream in protest the closer you get to the the burning, almost telling you to turn around. One of them hits the ground somewhere in front of you, a haze of red and yellow and blue and pink, shades of purple mixing in as the leaves and bark melt together with the heat. The grass, usually green under your feet, smells brown and harsh.

Forced to make a slight detour, you maneuver around the trees and whip your cane out of your strife deck to make sure you don't run into any stray flames. It also makes for a useful pole, giving you leverage to make a small vault over a few burning lusi who didn't escape the unexpected natural (but probably not natural, you think) disaster.

After what feels like hours, the trees move away to reveal a clearing. The air here is clogged with smoke and it blocks the water from your smell entirely, leaving nothing but a block of grey just past the burnt grass on the ground. The closer you get, the more the heat seems to radiate from the stone scale. The closer you get, the more your stomach twists and the heavier your feet feel.

_Tick tock._

You sniff hard, reaching forward with the hand not holding your cane as you step closer. There's still the distinct teal of the egg pooling in your nose, but it's broken up by sharp lines of black. When you reach the scale, you put your palm flat on the stone and it's hot but not enough to burn your thick skin.

And then you hear it. _Tick. Tock._ You feel to the left, sniffing and running your fingertips over the silver-grey marks on the Doomsday Scale.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

You lean forward and lick the stone, taste the thick black and the traces of grey and take in the numbers that you couldn't quite make out with your sense of smell. It tastes like death. The clock is already down to four minutes. You reach out for your lusus, for some trace of the dragon that had to have been here only a number of minutes ago. Nothing reaches back physically or mentally. A sense of dread digs its cold claws into your vascular organ, and you scramble to pull your palmhusk from your sylladex. You sniff through your deck and find the right card, yanking it and your palmhusk out.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Three minutes. In your haste, you almost troll the wrong person.

gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]

GC: SOLLUX  
GC: SOLLUX TH1S 1S TH3 3ND OF THE WORLD  
TA: diidnt you 2ay thii2 2ame thiing two me TWIICE la2t week.  
GC: OK4Y YES M4YB3  
GC: BUT TH1S T1M3 1S D1FF3R3NT!  
TA: lii2ten tz now2 not really the tiime.  
TA: my lu2u2 ii2 fiightiing wiith hiim2elf agaiin. let2 talk about thii2 later.  
GC: W41T!  
GC: MY LUSUS 1S GON3.  
GC: DO YOU S33 TH4T US3 OF PUNCTU4T1ON?  
GC: TH4T 1S M3 B31NG 1NCR3D1BLY S3R1OUSLY S3R1OUS  
GC: W4TCH! 1 C4N 3V3N DO 1T 4G41N.  
TA: diid you ju2t 2ay your lu2u2 ii2 gone??  
GC: F1N4LLY  
GC: 4R3 YOU ST4RT1NG TO UND3RST4ND WH4T 1 4M S4Y1NG?  
TA: holy 2hiit were fiinally goiing two diie.

The ground comes up to meet you and your consciousness shatters like glass as your face meets the grass. In the back of your pan, you can recognize the sound of your palmhusk going off multiple times and then you're moving again, shifting upwards as your optical orbs roll back. The last thing you hear before you lose touch with the waking world is the 'Tick. Tock.' of the Doomsday Scale.

ERROR_  
SIGNAL LOST_  
SEARCHING_


	3. ???: Watch.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It sure has been a long time since you did this.

CONNECTION TO SEER LOST_  
CHOOSE PATH_

> Examine inhabitants

PATH FOUND_  
ENTER COMMAND_

> Find Terezi Pyrope

ERROR_  
SIGNAL LOST_  
SEER UNAVAILABLE_  
CHOOSE PATH_

> View inhabitants  
> Find Karkat Vantas

ERROR_  
KARKAT VANTAS DOES NOT EXIST_  
ENTER COMMAND_

>

Spades Slick squints at the oversized monitor in front of him, getting increasingly annoyed by the prompt demanding a command and refusing to listen to him. He huffs and scowls, briefly considering abandoning the stupid computer in favor of _something_ more beneficial to him. In the end, he shuffles his feet and takes a few steps away. A break. A break is exactly what he needs.

What? You? You are _not_ Spades Slick, obviously. He is a little too angry and you are someone much more important.

Slick squints over at you and gestures to the computer, clearly fed up with these shenanigans, but you ignore him and his nonsensical cursing. You are still very hungry. Whatever food _was_ in this hatch under the surface of (Derse? You are sure you have to be on Derse still.) is gone, consumed by you and your... companion. He doesn't like it when you call him your friend. Cohort might work, he might find that devious enough to accept it. You'll run it by him later, when Official Not-Friend Titles are more on topic and he isn't waving his arms around like a maniac.

You jab a finger in the direction of the empty pots (there were plants there, before breakfast) and cans thrown in the corner unceremoniously. Slick grumbles something unpleasant and heads over there, kicking the cans around and then holding one of the opened, empty containers in front of your face. Clearly, he isn't understanding what you want. You haven't had much to eat since you appearified here and even if he's not hungry, you certainly are. You take the container and bite into it and he snatches it back from between your teeth, looking almost offended. He almost looks familiar like that.

Something jabs at the back of your subconscious like a reminder, something about imps? Or maybe beating imps? You aren't sure, as you are not and never will be an imp or be involved in any imp related shenanigans. Those guys are pretty terrible to be around, you think. Not that you have met very many imps in the flesh, but you have watched a lot of them from various standpoints and monitors.

Interrupting your thoughts is Slick, throwing a can directly into the side of your head. You hate him a little, sometimes, and you think his rude and disorderly conduct wouldn't be tolerated in _your_ city. You decide, in that moment, that the next time you find a can of food or any TAB you will not be sharing with him until he dedicates himself to learning how to be a valuable member of society. As if he can read your thoughts, the other Carapacian points at you with his not metal appendages and swings a knife around wildly in his metal digits. You are sure he is going to hurt himself eventually.

You step up to the computer while he is busy kicking around cans and acting absurd.

> locate the john boy.

ERROR_  
WORLD TWO UNAVAILABLE_

> locate dave.

ERROR_  
WORLD TWO UNAVAILABLE_  
ENTER COMMAND_

This is, clearly, not going your way. You shove a finger town on the 'TAB' key. Nothing happens. Disappointed, you poke at the key until it falls off. And then you eat it.

Slick comes back over, apparently done playing with cans like a crazy man, and stares daggers at the screen. And then at the keys. He repeats this a couple times before jabbing a finger inquisitively at the missing key. You aren't sure what to tell him about that, so you shrug as if it has been gone the whole time. He frowns and looks between you and the key for a while before giving up. You pat his shoulder reassuringly, because the key was useless anyway. Why have a TAB that doesn't dispense more sugary liquids for you. Ridiculous.

You miss your old hatch, with the APPEARIFIER and Serenity and the computer with John. Unfortunately, the hatch you are in currently doesn't have those luxuries. This one doesn't even have a working _door._ Just one that appears to be rusted shut with no attractive green buttons to open it. You continue to be thoroughly disappointed. The only buttons in here are red, one with nothing on it and another with a funny symbol that looks rather like an eye. Not that you would know or anything, but those red buttons aren't good for much.

At the bottom of the screen - currently filled with mostly static, because it hasn't locked on to anything - is a timer that has been resting at zero since before your arrival. Slick was poking around at it when you first arrived, but since then he's mostly been jamming commands into the computer. Right on time, there's a distinct buzz from the monitor that signals he's trying to interact with something (someone?) he can't. You watch him hunch over the keys again, this time shoving his fingers against a few different buttons at once.

While he's busy doing nothing helpful, you go back to looking around. And, surprisingly, nothing has changed. There are no mysterious pumpkins or friends trapped in amber or surprise ditches of food. The only door is (still) the only door. There is (still) no John on the computer screen. This is all very disappointing. Maybe you should have stayed in _your_ hatch, with the familiar creatures and food and a door that at least kind of works.

In front of you Slick seems to have given up on making any more progress. He moves to the side instead to stick his knife into some of the emptied cans on the floor. You decide not to bother him, he seems like he needs to get this out of his system and you like not having any holes in your person. Something blinks in the bottom corner of the keyboard, a small yellow button you hadn't noticed before.  It's only the size of the tip of one of your phalanges, so you assure yourself that overlooking this one button could have happened to anyone. Your companion is also looking now, lip curled in annoyance at another addition to the confusing game you're playing.

While he considers your options, you jam a finger onto the button. The screen flashes twice and Spades Slick yells something incoherent, shoving his metal digits toward the large monitor in horror.

MAGE ACTIVE_  
SOLLUX CAPTOR SELECTED_  
WORLD LOADED_  
MAGE SELECTED_


End file.
